2013- A whole year in one LONG post

 I can't believe I haven't made a single blog post this year! We were busy but I still want to remember all the fun things that we've done. We've had a new FHE focus for the year being to study the Family Proclamation together with each month being broken down into parts (January read/study as a whole, Feb..., March focus on prayer, April focus on repentance, May focus on forgiveness, June focus on respect, etc...) Its been so nice having a topic already picked out so then ready or not on monday night we read/study/color/discuss that topic. We've been keeping busy with home teaching, visiting teaching, primary teaching, sunday school teaching/presidency calling, Ear infections and other unkind viruses, crafty things, family dinners with parents/grandparents/whatever family is in town, church choir, rob's city league softball games, temple dates, relief society activities, elders quorum basketball... LOTS of stuff... so besides the usual stuff (mentioned above) I went through my 2013 calendar and pulled out the highlights for each month...

January
- 3 month old Ben turned 4 months old on the 27th (we were clearly still recovering from new baby, adjusting to having 2 kids, and relaxing after the crazy holidays)

February
- the much anticipated and super exciting Ward Ski Party at Kelly Canyon.
One of our first bigger (farther from home) with Ben; the two kiddos and I were there to hang in the lodge, play games, eat snacks, and socialize. Rob brought his snowboarding gear. Got settled, went to feed the baby and realized we forgot a bottle...since I don't produce milk well so nursing was out and the lodge had nothing we could use and home was too far away so getting a bottle seemed impossible. We panicked a little bit. We generally over pack when going anywhere in hopes to never be caught unprepared...how could we forget what was possibly the most important thing! There is barely any cell reception up there at the ski lodge but standing by a particular window i was able to get a hold of a gas station that was about halfway home and they had ONE baby bottle left on their shelf. They were nice enough to hold it for me. I packed the kids back up into the car and sent Rob to go have fun snowboarding and we made our way down the mountain in the snow to get the bottle. By the time I fed and changed Baby Ben and took Abby for a potty break the night was gone and it was time to pick up Rob. A little bit of a bummer attempt at a ski party for us.

- niece Emma had a birthday party!
My sister had planned an activity to do with the kids at the birthday party... to plant flower seeds. Fun but in my original opinion way too messy... a bunch of toddlers, indoors (still too cold for outside) and a pile of dirt... however i REALLY enjoyed it and the kids did too. It got me all kinds of excited for spring and all the beautiful things that brings. I planted flowers in little pots with the kids and took home some extras to make garden starts. It was the best. Only thing better would have been a trip to the beach :) Can you tell the long Idaho winter kind of gets to me?

- my Grammy June Elizabeth Mayo passed away... she was kind of sick for a long time so it wasn't necessarily unexpected BUT I still can't believe she's gone from this life. I miss her and am glad she can be the beautiful classy and fun lady that i knew growing up now that she has passed on. I have wonderful childhood memories of polishing silver, making rainbows, doodling, dancing, singing, playing, laughing, imagining, and loving because of her. my parents (along with Joe and Danny) made the trip to be a part of her funeral services. They skyped us while with the family so we could send our love.

March
- Ben turned 6 months old on the 27th

-Easter! I love Easter sunday. What a wonderful chance to celebrate our Savior and the great news that he lives! We were able to spend time with both the Welker and Titus families...each having a special Easter feast. We're so thankful for flexible family members that make it possible for us to visit both sides. Also, my mom set up a huge easter egg hunt for the kids in her back yard... we look forward to this each year. The kids are so lucky to have such incredible grandparents who love and spoil them tons! Good memories.

April
- General Conference

- Birthday!! Abby turned 3 years old and had one awesome birthday with all the balloons, bubbles, and cupcakes a girl could imagine. She woke up to a land of special birthday surprises in our living room and later we had a little party with her cousins and a few friends,

- Rob and my 5 Year Wedding Anniversary. I can't believe its been 5 years?! We are blessed to have such a wonderful life together. Lucky to be together for eternity. We have so much fun together :) We had a weekend away planned and ended up changing plans a little bit... we took a trip as a family (instead of just the 2 of us)... see next event...

- Jake, Tiff, and Hyrum were sealed in the Boise Temple and invited us to be there. It was such a sweet moment that I'm glad we were able to be a part of! We love them so much and are so proud of their hard work to get to the temple as a family. I know that it will be such a blessing in their lives. As a side note... we got lost/stuck in traffic and nearly missed the sealing...somehow this always happens to us on important family trips...it make things so stressful! i hope we can break this trend in the future.

May
- Mother's Day... just a quick note to say that being a mom is NOT a easy job but I am SOOO thankful for the opportunity i have to be a mom especially to the best two kids in the world and with the best husband at my side helping me raise these crazy kids :)

-Ben is crawling! There's no stopping him now...

-David came home from an honorable and awesome mission in Argentina.

June
- Abby's allergy appointment... For the past few months abby has been breaking out in these horrible rashy hives at random times and we couldn't figure out what was happening beyond her excema...we prepared for a long doctors appt complete with new backpack full of special coloring book and movies.  took her to the allergist for a painful but informative visit... she is severely allergic to tabacco and nothing else...so touching the neighbors cigarette butts in the yard, or coming in contact with people who smoke or things that have been smoked on are the cause of these scary hives. poor kid :( Unfortunately you can't stop the world for smoking so she takes zyrtec regularly and has a topical cream to use as well.

- Father's Day

- Playmill trip. We left Abby and Ben in the care of Uncle Davey and went with Rob's family to West Yellowstone. Luckily they are such great kids and lucky that we have awesome families because I always worry about leaving the kids. Anyway, this has become a favorite outing of mine as we have done it many times over the past few years. This time we went to see the Beauty and the Beast. It was fantastic :)

- Rob's birthday

-Ben stands up and scoots along the furniture now

-Titus trip to California! Holy smokes talk about crazy...talk about fun... We played at the beach, visited family, spent as much time as possible with grandma, and had a wonderful time! Its was a long drive with kids who don't love car rides but we tried to drive while they were sleeping and we shared a hotel room with my family to cut down on cost. (it was cramped but fun...thanks to my parents for inviting us along. thanks to my brothers who gave up their bed and slept on the floor so we could have a bed with the kids. thanks to davey for being a rockstar of a driver on the way home with me since rob had to fly home to get back to work)

-Abby's soccer camp. Some highschool girls in our neighborhood (with the help of their parents) host a little kiddie soccer camp in the summer time. Abby got to go through twice and LOVED it. The camp was an hour long each day for a week (i think). She had a blast and still talks about it. No doubt we'll do this again next year :)

July
- Independence Day...we started a new tradition that i hope we can keep up in future years... a family fun run/5k in the morning before picnics and fireworks.

- Welker family reunion in Boise

- Melaleuca BBQ. We won an ice cream maker! Woot woot!

- Hogel zoo with Joe and Tiana and their kids. Lots of fun to hang with their family for the day. one of my favorite things at the zoo was watching the baby elephant play in the water :)

-Pioneer Day. Made Abby and I some costumes so we could be in the parade. Picked up some fried chicken so Rob, Ben, Abby and I could have fun at the ward picnic. I can't remember what happened exactly but some how the kids had major melt downs and we were embarrassed and left early... life of a family with toddlers i guess... at least the parade and beginning of the picnic were super fun.

-Mackenzie's birthday. the big 25.

August
- Chuckars baseball games... who doesn't love a good baseball game in the summertime. we like to hit up the sponsored free nights (via byui alumni, westmark, melaleuca, and teton toyota)

-Melamasters golf tournament... rob had a fun time golfing it up all morning :)

- Mesa Falls camping trip. So memorable for so many reasons. It was our first family of 4 camping trip. we brought David with us (thank goodness! note to that in a sec). we found a great campsite and had borrowed a tent from mom/dad Welker and really enjoyed our temporary little homestead. We made the most amazing tin foil dinners with food we received from Mama Titus' garden. Abby and I found treasures...mostly in the form of gorgeous wild flowers and one triangle shaped rock. The next morning we woke up, took down camp, and went to see the falls. We borrowed a hiking child carrier from Grandma and grandpa welker which Abby sat in during the hikes and we had our own infant carrier for Ben.  First we saw the lower falls and they were breathtaking. it was a short hike and very easy since its all a paved/ boardwalk style place. The falls were just beautiful. Then we went to the Lower falls... the lookout point was nice but they were far away and so we just admired them from a distance. Rob remembered going there when he was a kid and thought you could get closer so we decided to try the hiking trail (which we later learned that we did the whole thing backwards)...it was a long hot hike. we should have prepared better (more water, better clothes, snacks, sunblock, toilet paper, ...) but thought it was a lot shorter than it turned out to be. the kids fell asleep. we were warned of bears nearby by people on horseback. we sang at the top of our lungs to scare away any wildlife... i could not even fathom what we would do while hiking on foot with small kids and a cliff on our right if we were to encounter a bear! so glad we didn't have to find out. we found someones cell phone (and were able to return it on our way home). Finally when we got out of the woods and realized we were miles away from our car with no way back we started hiking back this time along the road. David (thank goodness for David) ran in his jeans in the hot hot sun to get the car and bring it back to us while we marched slowly in that direction with the kids. Holy smokes! what an adventure.

-Audrey's baby shower

-Lagoon trip. with Mom, Dad, Davey, and Danny Titus. (and two of david's friends) We were trying to do a lot with them since David will be leaving indefinitley in september. He's joining the Navy. So fun! Thanks to mom/dad Welker for watching Abby and Ben while we went. Again, a fast but fun trip. We were able to ride in mom and dad's car to save on costs since it was just the two of us.

September
- Abby started preschool. it is so hard to decided what to do for your kids when it comes to education and activities outside of the home. I was so blessed to have a couple friends who invited us to be a part of their preschool plans... we ended up choosing the one at the Teddy Bear Academy. Terri Wixom is the teacher and the whole thing is great. Abby loves it! She comes home each time looking forward to the next school day. (its tuesdays and fridays from 12-2) We miss her while she's gone but its been great for Ben and I to get things done or to just nap and have one on one time too.

-Rob (with help and instruction from paul and david) changed the break pads on our car. This was so awesome and saved us tons of money... when I say tons I mean that we were quoted $150-$250 by a couple different places... we paid 24.99 and did it ourselves! AWESOME! Thanks Dad, Davey, and Rob.

-Ward campout. we're really enjoying family campouts.

-David left for Navy bootcamp (he ended up doing a great job and graduating as THE honor recruit for his division)

-Ben's 1st birthday!! So exciting! He smashed cake everywhere and couldn't have been more happy that we were giving him food to eat on his on especially the spaghetti and the cake! Best thing ever!

-new nephew Luke Ryan Welker was born

-Cress creek family hike. soaking up some more sunshine while we can. its a beautiful hike (which we realized we'd never done the whole thing until now so you bet we did the whole thing this time!)


October
- General Conference

-Anngilynn Anderson (Darr and Cara's baby) blessing in Boise.

-Blood drive. Rob signed us up...i get so nervous about needles and donating blood. it turned out good though and we treated ourselves (and abby and ben) to sizzler afterwards :)

- new nephew Cooper Morris Hillyard was born

-Linds and kids visit for the month. we were super busy but it was so worth it. fun fun fun

-Halloween- Rob/I were scarecrows while Abby, ben, liam, and emma were little pumpkins. Our cute pumpkin patch turned out great! We trick or treated at Rob's work one day, then we did the neighborhood trunk or treat on halloween. we got back inside just as the freezing rain started.

November
- Luke's baby blessing. we've been to utah a couple times for fast trips this year and were SO glad to FINALLY be able to spend time with the Welker family down there. The whole family stayed at Ryan and Emily's house in Sandy and we were able to be there for a sweet blessing and great luncheon afterwards.

-Thanksgiving. We love being close to our families so we can be with them on the holidays. We realize this might not always be the case so we like to celebrate with each family all the time... yes, we're talking two thanksgiving dinners in one day... haha... you learn to pace yourself. We had a lovely early dinner at Grandma sue's house with the welkers including uncle john, aly, and jonah. Then we had a nice dinner at the titus house... it was quiet but great :) So much to be thankful for in our lives why not party all day :)

December
- Ward party, Relief Society party, Melaleuca party, BD Team party, Abby's school party... oh my that's been a lot a christmas partying!

- GRE...Rob has been studying his bum off for a few months and took the big test this past friday. he didn't do as well as he had hoped but still feels like we should try applying to grad schools and see what happens. Pray for us! Its stressful to not know what the future holds. We just want to be able to progress as a family and grow as individuals as well BUT its tough to know what is right for us and ever tougher getting to our goals. p.s. we're looking at masters programs to become registered dietician... could end up in dallas or spokane for school if all goes as currently planned?

- Cooper's baby blessing. Since both the welker and hillyard families are mostly in Idaho falls they came up here to have their baby blessed. He is SO sweet! we're so happy to have him in the family and love Aurdrey, casey, and cooper tons!

- Christmas--- its TONIGHT!... and I'm sitting here composing what could be the worlds longest blog post because I am home with a sick kid (poor abby has a stomach flu) while we sent Rob and Ben to participate in family festivities. She's so exhausted...i'm gonna go and try to get her to keep down some rice... wish us luck. pray for the little chica. she's so sweet and i want her to be happy on christmas.